Imagine that . Rich people pretending to commit crimes so they can pretend to be "down on their luck" as their excuse for being homeless. Or rich people pretending to not be able to get along with their loved ones/coworkers/etc.Like 99% of the homeless.

WTF tangible benefit does 'raising awareness' provide? It is so stupid. So many groups spending money and making pointless gestures to 'raise awareness'.

Theres always someone outside the grocery store or mall collecting money to 'raise awareness'. LOL ridiculous. Can you eat awareness? Can you use awareness to stay warm? Does awareness end conflict or solve anything? NO. What are you actually DOING to solve a problem? 'Raising awareness' doesn't.

Yes, the reason that homelessness exists and persists is that nobody is aware of it.

Hang on, my eyes are rolling out of my head...

I love this end of the spectrum, with their pat-themself-on-the-back, holier-than-thou social activism. I wonder if they posted some catchy graphic or slogan to their Facebook profile to let their friends know just how Active and Progressive they really are.

stiletto_the_wise:Abe Vigoda's Ghost: And what has subby done to try and raise awareness?

WTF tangible benefit does 'raising awareness' provide? It is so stupid. So many groups spending money and making pointless gestures to 'raise awareness'.

Theres always someone outside the grocery store or mall collecting money to 'raise awareness'. LOL ridiculous. Can you eat awareness? Can you use awareness to stay warm? Does awareness end conflict or solve anything? NO. What are you actually DOING to solve a problem? 'Raising awareness' doesn't.

Yeah, well, how much attention does it garner for these people if they just quietly setup a soup kitchen, or pool their money and create a homeless halfway house to help people get back on their feet? Huh? HUh? HUH?

Bet you didn't even think about the attention for these noble souls.

/ and they wouldn't have an excuse to make a fun cardboard castle// pretty sure you're a monster for what you're denying these people

The homeless should be thankful we slept in well designed, flashy, cardboard houses! We did it for them! I went one night without watching the food network for them! Wait...they want us to donate our cardboard castles to them? Fark that! We're recycling! Earth is better than those homeless freaks! They need to go out and get jobs! I won't give them money or something to spend on drugs...now excuse me while I go pay for my son's adderall.

All charities must be simple, straightforward and to the point. Charities shall only be allowed to place cans at the grocery checkouts. These cans may only describe which ailment or affliction the charity supports written in a plain, sans serif font.

BigNumber12:Yes, the reason that homelessness exists and persists is that nobody is aware of it.

Hang on, my eyes are rolling out of my head...

I love this end of the spectrum, with their pat-themself-on-the-back, holier-than-thou social activism. I wonder if they posted some catchy graphic or slogan to their Facebook profile to let their friends know just how Active and Progressive they really are.

It's hard to fix the homeless problem. The reasons why some people are long-term homeless are hard to fix from an external perspective. Sure, some people are homeless short term and the fix for them is affordable housing. That sort of homelessness isn't incredibly hard to fix. It's just a matter of helping people who are willing to help to those who need help. But when you have an anti-social person with a mental disorder or substance abuse problem what can you do other than try and address those issues and hope it helps downstream?

But yea, sometimes people's feelings on addressing the problem matter more than their efforts to address the problem.

stiletto_the_wise:Abe Vigoda's Ghost: And what has subby done to try and raise awareness?

WTF tangible benefit does 'raising awareness' provide? It is so stupid. So many groups spending money and making pointless gestures to 'raise awareness'.

Theres always someone outside the grocery store or mall collecting money to 'raise awareness'. LOL ridiculous. Can you eat awareness? Can you use awareness to stay warm? Does awareness end conflict or solve anything? NO. What are you actually DOING to solve a problem? 'Raising awareness' doesn't.

Damn you biatches are bitter. It says they raised 34 thousand, which won't end anything but at least it's something. Hell that 34,000 is probably more than everyone in here complaining combined has ever done for anyone else less fortunate, times 10? 100? 1000?

I am on the board of a 501c3 organization that raises money for the Veterans winter shelter every year. There are 6 of us involved and we raise about $25-30k a year. Our operating budget is $500 a year to print flyers maintain the website etc. Every cent over and above that goes to provide clothing and food for the shelter. Every cent. There was an awareness organization that wanted to partner IP with us and do an event similar to this and we declined. They essentially wanted us to give them money for the event. Every "member" of this organization pulled a paycheck from it and we are a 100% volunteer organization. On top of that we have never seen them at the shelter doing any work and the Veteran's Village had never heard of them or received anything from them ever.

Zeb Hesselgresser:stiletto_the_wise: Abe Vigoda's Ghost: And what has subby done to try and raise awareness?

WTF tangible benefit does 'raising awareness' provide? It is so stupid. So many groups spending money and making pointless gestures to 'raise awareness'.

Theres always someone outside the grocery store or mall collecting money to 'raise awareness'. LOL ridiculous. Can you eat awareness? Can you use awareness to stay warm? Does awareness end conflict or solve anything? NO. What are you actually DOING to solve a problem? 'Raising awareness' doesn't.

Wow, people who had NO reason to try to help, tries to help and nearly everyone in here blasts them for it. Wonder how many of the critics here volunteered for a good cause in the last week or even year.

Class warfare at it's best, if you are doing well in this country, people don't commend you, they berate you for being well off.

stiletto_the_wise:Abe Vigoda's Ghost: And what has subby done to try and raise awareness?

WTF tangible benefit does 'raising awareness' provide? It is so stupid. So many groups spending money and making pointless gestures to 'raise awareness'.

Theres always someone outside the grocery store or mall collecting money to 'raise awareness'. LOL ridiculous. Can you eat awareness? Can you use awareness to stay warm? Does awareness end conflict or solve anything? NO. What are you actually DOING to solve a problem? 'Raising awareness' doesn't.

Raising awareness is vitally important. In fact, I didn't even know what homelessness was before this stunt.

titwrench:I am on the board of a 501c3 organization that raises money for the Veterans winter shelter every year. There are 6 of us involved and we raise about $25-30k a year. Our operating budget is $500 a year to print flyers maintain the website etc. Every cent over and above that goes to provide clothing and food for the shelter. Every cent. There was an awareness organization that wanted to partner IP with us and do an event similar to this and we declined. They essentially wanted us to give them money for the event. Every "member" of this organization pulled a paycheck from it and we are a 100% volunteer organization. On top of that we have never seen them at the shelter doing any work and the Veteran's Village had never heard of them or received anything from them ever.

It's not really a news flash that some charities are crooked and some do good work.

Just because an "awareness" charity you had contact with was bad news doesn't mean all "awareness" charities are similarly bent. There are lots of seemingly straightforward charities that claim to directly help people but mainly act as sources of fat paychecks for their directors.

as someone who has been homeless in phoenix in the past it's not fun, you can't enroll you'r kid in school without having a mailing address and phone number, it sometimes drops below freezing at night and then gets up past 90 during the day , people will call the police if you try to sleep in your car or anywhere they can see you the shelters are worse then most jails and the food they offer will make you sick if you don't have an iron stomach.

KyaraMionNyah:as someone who has been homeless in phoenix in the past it's not fun, you can't enroll you'r kid in school without having a mailing address and phone number, it sometimes drops below freezing at night and then gets up past 90 during the day , people will call the police if you try to sleep in your car or anywhere they can see you the shelters are worse then most jails and the food they offer will make you sick if you don't have an iron stomach.

titwrench:KyaraMionNyah: as someone who has been homeless in phoenix in the past it's not fun, you can't enroll you'r kid in school without having a mailing address and phone number, it sometimes drops below freezing at night and then gets up past 90 during the day , people will call the police if you try to sleep in your car or anywhere they can see you the shelters are worse then most jails and the food they offer will make you sick if you don't have an iron stomach.

Possible solution: Stop sending enormous amounts of aid to Africa. We've been doing it for as far back as I can recall (meaning decades) and nothing changes. Basically they still have mass genocide, insane leaders, kill each other off for the slightest reason, mangle each other over superstitions (albino body parts in demand by witch doctors, sex with virgin kids -- rape -- as a cure for AIDS, and pretty much every nation having rebel armies who slaughter anyone for anything) and leaders who tend to pocket most of the aid, sell the majority of the remainder off to other nations and dribble what little is left to the people.

I figure that ought to free up a couple of billion per year. Cut off aid to assorted other nations which gobble it up and rant about how evil the USA is and you have another couple of billion saved.

Take that money and start building or buying homes for the homeless. What with so many folks being tossed out of their homes thanks to crooked mortgage dealing by banks, there's a glut on the market of empty ones, which should be available dirt cheap. Plus, some of those billions could be used to actually keep people from being thrown out onto the streets to become homeless while their now empty houses slowly rot or get vandalized or squatters move in.

Plus, you could actually build homes for the homeless someplace else besides low income communities, where crime explodes or use some additional funds to increase police presence in such areas.

Siphon some of those billions off to reopen some of the huge State Mental Hospitals president Reagan shut down, dumping the mentally ill into the streets. Many of them, while not perfect, provided adequate food, shelter, care and help for their occupants and quite a few were nearly self sufficient. Crime would drop dramatically, which would save even more billions.

(The Waverly State Mental Hospital, up until it's closing, made it's own power, grew a lot of it's own food, provided on site housing for staff, had it's own morgue and cemetery, and fed, clothed, treated, educated and provided medical care for thousands of severely mentally ill folks.)

Maybe not perfect, but better than a cardboard box in a homeless camp and a whole lot better than tossing the patients in over crowded prisons.

I roughly estimate the homeless problem could be cut in half this way. Then you'd see a difference for those dollars you send to charity. You could actually feel good about it. You wouldn't have to worry about your kids joining the military and be sent to some aid guzzling nation, where the citizens, raised on food and medications you paid for, use Russian weapons and IED's to blow them into hamburger because some fanatic told them to.

Not to mention that taking care of the homeless would eventually generate many more jobs not only for them, but for others. So you'd be getting a dividend on your 'investment'.

Zeb Hesselgresser:stiletto_the_wise: Abe Vigoda's Ghost: And what has subby done to try and raise awareness?

WTF tangible benefit does 'raising awareness' provide? It is so stupid. So many groups spending money and making pointless gestures to 'raise awareness'.

Theres always someone outside the grocery store or mall collecting money to 'raise awareness'. LOL ridiculous. Can you eat awareness? Can you use awareness to stay warm? Does awareness end conflict or solve anything? NO. What are you actually DOING to solve a problem? 'Raising awareness' doesn't.

FTA, the event raised $34,000 for a local Family Assistance Center

That's cool. See, at least that's SOMETHING. Even better, it would be awesome if the money actually goes towards helping the homeless, rather than just get funneled into another "raising awareness" event.

hbk72777:titwrench: Abe Vigoda's Ghost: And what has subby done to try and raise awareness?

Raising awareness is just code for give us money. They don't actually "do" anything.

The biggest culprit[encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com image 300x168]

BINGO. "We're raising awareness of breast cancer." "Oh REALLY? shiat, I had NO IDEA breast cancer even existed until you told me. OMFG the problem is so much closer to being solved now, thanks to my heightened sense of awareness!"

bel4sucks:Damn you biatches are bitter. It says they raised 34 thousand, which won't end anything but at least it's something. Hell that 34,000 is probably more than everyone in here complaining combined has ever done for anyone else less fortunate, times 10? 100? 1000?

MaudlinMutantMollusk: Great moments in pointless gestures #39662

/it's their fault because they didn't save

Yeah why raise money to help people, right?

DownDaRiver: Not going to read the article because it would probably get me pissed off at people who will never know, nor care if they did, that I got pissed off at them.

Yeah don't read the article where they interview a woman who was forced into sleeping with her mom in their car when she was 7, she doesn't know shiat about it right?

Dude, you know nothing about me.I may no nothing about homelessness. Or I might know more than I ever thought I would know.